When Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) came to the crossroads the entire country faces, he named the street signs. “About a year and a half ago, I was riding from my district back to Washington, DC, and thinking about what is actually going on in our country, what is dividing us, what is steering us in a direction that I didn’t think was in the best interest of this country,” Neugebauer said Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation Bloggers Briefing. “And so, I basically wrote a paper on the plane on my …
First, McDonald’s was sued because its coffee was just too darned hot; now they’re being sued because their Happy Meal toys are just too darned good at marketing food to kids. The Washington, DC, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has served McDonald’s a letter of intent to sue in California court “if the fast-food chain continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals.” Why? They say the toys lure kids into eating unhealthy foods: “McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” said …
Government spending is out of control and President Obama’s method of throwing more money at our economy is not working. Federal spending cuts need to start somewhere, and there is no better place than a program that can survive on its own. American taxpayers are subsidizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to the tune of over $420 million dollars in 2010 alone. CPB is the parent company of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the National Public Radio (NPR) radio networks. CPB has even requested $608 million for their …
Despite its failure last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending. This is obviously the wrong approach. Instead of throwing more money at the ever-expanding and fiscally unsustainable welfare state, Congress should implement practices that work to move people out …
In New York, facing a $9 billion deficit, state legislators put welfare on the chopping block to head off a government shutdown. Lawmakers in New Jersey avert their own shutdown in a ninth-hour budget deal that manages to save $22 million for adults on welfare. Meanwhile, in budget-busting California, welfare recipients keep playing the casinos by withdrawing cash with their state-issued debit cards. Trillions in welfare spending will drive America to bankruptcy unless Congress puts on the brakes and encourages able-bodied adults to seek work and act responsibly, rather than …
Why is an act from the 1920s hindering a more efficient effort to clean up the Gulf coast? And why are politicians refusing to budge on a common-sense measure to bring more aid and technology into the area that needs as much help as it can get? Listen to Rob Bluey explain the Jones Act, an outdated act that prevents foreign ships from speeding the recovery of the Gulf coast, in this week’s Heritage in Focus podcast. You can also subscribe to Heritage in Focus’s RSS feed, or listen to …
When is a timeline not really a timeline? When the President says so. See GITMO, Healthcare, etc…now add Afghanistan. At a press conference today, President Obama said of his Afghanistan withdrawal timeline, “We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us. We said we’d begin a transition phase in which the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility.” Good news for folks who think we ought to fight our wars to win? Guess again. If the start date for the withdrawal is not …
We’ve all heard it before — the age-old saying “Better late than never.” Well, get ready to hear it again, this time from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, regarding the creation of high-risk pools under Obamacare. The pools were supposed to provide coverage for individuals who cannot get health insurance due to chronic illness. Obamacare slated the establishment of the pools to occur no later than 90 days after the legislation passed on March 23. This past Monday marked day 90, and the pools remain nowhere to be …
Exposing the extent to which criminal law has expanded, the Supreme Court today narrowed the scope of the federal “honest services” fraud statute and called into question the validity of Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling’s conviction. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and two other “liberal” justices would have gone even further than the majority and granted Skilling a new trial. All nine justices agreed, however, that the government’s “honest services” theory overreached. Using astoundingly vague, overbroad language, the “honest services” statute makes it a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years in …
One of the reoccurring questions surrounding the Gulf oil spill is why there wasn’t better technology in place to cap the leak and contain the slick. Although the rigs are equipped with a blowout preventer, which failed, many are wondering why other preventative mechanisms were not readily available. Technologies that typically take months or even years to develop were being tested and implemented within weeks. Part of the problem, unsurprisingly, was the government underestimating the environmental effects of a spill. The Wall Street Journal’s Keith Johnson and Neil King Jr. …
